The interviewer, Plum Kaepernick, appears and takes a seat. "Cameras aren't rolling yet. Anything I need to know last minute?" she asks. "This is for example the right time to ask if you're not sure how to pronounce my name or something."

"Plum Kae-per-nick, right?"  A person's name is the nicest thing they'll ever hear, make sure you pronounce it correctly.  "I'm going by my codename right now, it's 'Aumento'.  I don't think I'm missing anything apart from that, ma'am."

"You've got it. Aumento," she repeats. "All right, and we're going to get those lights up and go in five, four..." The cameraman counts down the rest of the way on his fingers and Plum arranges herself to beam at the camera. "Hi there, everybody, it's Plum again and I'm here to introduce you to a new local esper! Aumento here just awakened recently and looks ready to hit the ground running. Aumento, how'd you choose that codename?"

Okay, you planned for this one, it's easy.  "It's 'I augment' in Spanish.  It turns out that picking out codenames is pretty tricky, we've had espers for a long time and it felt like all the cool ones were taken.  My power is all about lifting others up, and I was raised speaking Spanish at home.  So, Aumento."

"So that's sounding like something in the 'buff' category, is that right?"

"Yes'm.  I can give other people enhanced strength and durability, along with some ability to recover from injury.  I'm hoping to help bridge a gap for people who would be a perfect fit for a dungeon if they could just endure the dungeon's hazards better."  That's not a complete answer, but I don't have a duty to tell everyone everything about my power.

"Fellow espers, or more like souped-up SWAT teams?"

"More likely fellow espers, since I'd prefer to have guiding available.  It also does take a little bit of getting used to, along with special equipment - I had a MOLLE rig commissioned with elastic EVERYWHERE.  It's easy to accidentally stretch too far and pop a button."

"A MOLLE rig?" she asks, leaning forward with elbows-on-knees fascination.

"Oh, yeah - it's a kind of load-bearing equipment.  It's like LEGOs, but for carrying equipment, first aid kits and stuff.  You can put pouches and bags and stuff everywhere, there are like multitool sheathes designed to fit right into it."  Tim is beginnig to get more animated, gesturing at where his imaginary MOLLE rig pouches are.  "I can get you a photo of it at some point, I have it on my phone.  I really like it because you can customize it however makes sense for you, if your equipment is imbalanced, you've got noone to blame but yourself."  You sound like an infomercial.

"And the elastic is so you don't, with the enhanced strength, break something? So this must be more than normal esper strength by a fair margin."

"Yes, and the durability is just as important.  A lot of the reason humans don't use their full strength is that it hurts, right?  If you don't have to worry about pinching your fingertips between the fingerbone and a fifty pounds, you can do more and for longer.  Like those stupid trashbags that turn into razorblades when you put fifty pounds' worth of junk in them."  THAT IS NOT PROFESSIONAL.  Wait, is this being vulnerable?  Being too perfect will make people uneasy, maybe this is okay.

"I never thought about it that way. You must have a pretty good backlash conversion rate, if you can count on being able to carry more gear through an entire dungeon run."

"Well, I can always take it off if I have to, I'd rather have to replace my backpack later than get left behind.  But even if I could carry a pickup on my back, I still need to have mobility and to not get caught on things."  Perfect, very professional.

"And you do sound like you're planning on a dungeoneering career! Have you had a field test yet or is it still in the works?"

"I have, actually!  Did you hear of the pool dungeon, the one with the tiny sharks in it?  It was a little embarrassing to get deployed to it, honestly, it was this liminal swimming pool that trapped people on islands of concrete, with sharks swimming around the islands.  The problem was that this dungeon didn't understand scale, or something like that?"  Don't UPTALK.  "So the moats between the islands was maybe two or three feet.  Everyone jumped out and escaped on their own except for this older couple who didn't want to risk it.  Ten minutes with a wood plank later, and everyone was rescued.  After that, I stripped down and fished out a couple of the sharks.  We smashed the core and went home."

"Do you get to keep the sharks?" she asks, though it's pretty clear from her smile she's joking.

"I only have visitation rights, unfortunately.  They're hoping the sharks can breed, or maybe see if we can get them to re-grow their teeth like normal sharks."  Yessss, looking harmless, definitely not like killerdon'tthinkaboutit.  Keep talking, Tim!  "If they do re-grow, I've been promised dibs on one of the teeth, though I'm not sure what I'd do with it yet.  Got any ideas?"

"I think putting it on a necklace is traditional."

"Probably better than an earring, I'm not sure how that would work with the healing."  Say something intelligent.  Anything.  Fuck.  Tim.exe is not responding.

"How does the healing work? I know every esper's power is different."

"Well, it's hard to test because I don't want to injure people!  But it works best if an injury is recent.  If the injury is older, it's pretty slow.  If we set everything up to maximize my own ability to help people, I'd have a teleporter dropping someone on my lap whenever they get injured.  I don't want to say more to protect patient privacy, but I can confirm that one person who was injured quite seriously after a fall made a full recovery that same day."  Please don't ask anymore.

"It's good that you're on top of that! Do you see yourself balancing both roles going forward, or specializing?"

"I plan to fill as much of my downtime as possible with healing.  Aside from guiding, it's basically free.  I don't have to concentrate all that much.  I just have to make sure my patients don't smash their phones on accident!  Sinkhole, my current partner, is on board with this plan.  Unfortunately, if the injury isn't really recent, within minutes, the healing isn't very fast.  So I don't think I'd make a good specialized healer.  It's better than sitting around waiting, of course, but..."  Tim trails off, looking a little self-conscious.

"Was it hard to find an agent who could cover both dungeon assignment and all the steps involved in setting you up to heal?"

"Oh, no.  It was pretty straightforward for me.  William Moore set everything up for me.  Thankfully I don't need specialized equipment, I just need to have a small group of people near me and the understanding that they're going to be accident-prone.  We use an old movie theater right now."

"A movie theater! Not a very traditional sort of silo, but I guess if the super-strength is as tough to get used to as you say it stands to reason. Are they at all at risk of self-injuring, or are only inanimate objects in danger?"

"Honestly, if someone managed to hurt themselves while under the effects of my power, I would be impressed.  I guess...you could if you tried hard enough?"  Why would you do that, though.  "But really, it's just objects at risk, and I can revoke the..er, the empowerment if necessary.  I've found a week of training is enough to calibrate, now that I can explain how it works.  It took me a little longer to make it work for myself."

"A week of having the power active total, or a week of practicing occasionally?"

"Ooh, good question.  Let me check something."  Tim whips out his phone and glances through it for around ten seconds.  "About sixty hours of having the power active, it looks like."  Wait, are you supposed to do that in an interview?  Shit.

If he's not, she doesn't say anything about it. "That's quite a learning curve. What kinds of things did you do to get used to it?"

"Practice, practice, practice.  We hired a physical therapist who specializes in fine motor control as one of the coaches, along with a stroke rehab specialist.  Picking up individual grains of rice without smooshing them, throwing and catching apples, practice getting dressed, flipping coins, chopsticks.  At some point I got so frustrated with trying to turn a screw using a screwdriver without stripping it that I used my fingernail instead of the screwdriver, and that was easier for some reason."  Tim makes little screwdriving gestures, first as though he were using an invisible screwdriver, then using his thumb.  "Everything I wear is held together with magnets these days.  Elastic everything in my clothing.  Everything I buy is either high-quality and durable or super cheap and replaceable, there's almost no in-between."

"So you don't turn your power off, or it's just too likely that you'll want it suddenly without warning?"

"It's not really the risks so much as the stakes.  I take my responsibilities seriously, and part of my responsibility is making sure that I won't accidentally kick a doorframe out of the wall when I stub my toe.  The same goes for anyone who uses my power.  I'm very careful that everyone in my training silo knows what they can break on accident.  Of course, during a dungeon we'll have to worry less about being careful."

Yesssss, I got the whole speech off from memory!  I'm doing great!

"So your power can activate accidentally?"

"Not accidentally exactly, but reflexively.  It's a balancing act between being able to activate it if I'm attacked in a dungeon without warning versus not activating in a civilian context.  I need to have the reflexes, but I can't be too jumpy, either."

"Huh! It sounds like it's lucky that you were able to find a partner pretty quickly, how's that working out so far?"

You can't control your blush reaction but you don't have to acknowledge it.  If you don't acknowledge, you'll be perfectly normal.  "Um."  DON'T UM.  "It's a very good match, we're quite compatible and we have a similar opinion on guiding.  I'm glad that she's willing to put in -" word choice, Tim " - the time to make sure that I can do as much healing as possible, within the limits of training and scheduling."

"Are you up for telling us who she is and what she does?"

"Her codename is Sinkhole, but I should let her speak for herself apart from that."  Or remember what I'm allowed to say, I have it written down somewhere...

"Sinkhole. What an evocative choice. How'd you meet?"

Tim smiles a little wanly.  "She might have saved my life.  I didn't understand what was happening to me after awakening, and reflexively used my power.  I backlashed myself unconscious and could have died.  She brought me back out of it it by sitting on my legs until I recovered."

"Sounds like a close call! I'm glad you're okay. Was your awakening really disruptive to your life?"

"You know, in some ways it really wasn't.  I got my EMT certification after I turned eighteen and had been volunteering on the ambulance squad even before that.  Maman had me studying martial arts because it was easier for her than a babysitter since I was about..I think I was eight?  And I just really liked it.  And I love hiking and just exploring the woods, I always have since we came to America.  So in some ways, I was really well-prepared for awakening.  I guess I just got lucky."  Huh.  I never thought about it, but it's really kind of a big coincidence.  Well, it had to happen to someone, right?

"That's so convenient, do you think that training will come up a lot in your future career?"

"At least some of it will.  You probably can't put a dungeon monster in a joint lock, but a lot about EMS is keeping people calm, and medical training never hurt anybody."

"That's so true. Now, do you think you - and your partner - are up for you doing a little demo for our viewers?"

"If you can promise to only move your wrists, you can do the demonstration!"  Tim will offer his interlocutor an eight-inch copper rod.  "As long as you're really very careful not to stretch and pop a seam.  I think everybody should be able to do this sort of thing, and the only thing holding me back is, well, my backlash."

"Gosh!" says Plum, taking the rod. "I can try to hold very still above the wrists."

“Alright.  Go ahead and turn it into whatever shape makes you happy!”  Tim gives her a thumbs-up and begins intently watching in case of Sartorial Shennanigans.

She grins and twists it into a neat little pretzel. "Oh, that's such fun, what a neat power. I know we're all hoping your luck holds going forward."

Aaaaaaaaaand depowered safely.  Time to relax.  "Thank you very much, and thank you for the interview.  I appreciate the opportunity!"  Shame I can't do this all day.

Plum grins and holds up the pretzel for the camera. "And thank you, Aumento, for your time!"

Someone calls cut.

Whoooooooof.  That was draining, and it's not just the backlash.  The backlash is basically nothing.  "I know I said this a minute ago, but I really do mean it.  Thank you for having me on board.  I think I need to - decompress.  D'you mind if I head out?"  It feels a little weird to have a driver waiting for an HOUR, but.  They did say it's okay, and he gets paid to browse his phone while he waits.  It's fine.

"That's totally fine. We'll call you or your agent if we have any followup. Here you go." She offers him the pretzel.

"No, no, please, keep it.  A little souvenir.  I can make those anytime I want, you know?"  Tim will retreat under heavy fire calmly walk out to the lobby, into the street, into the waiting SUV.  Hup into the backseat.  "Hello, Jim.  I'm ready whenever you are."  And if he drinks a little thermos of gas station coffee, it's his right as an American to drink aggressively average coffee.  Nostalgia can produce a richer flavor than any high-end coffee bean.

On the way home, Tim decompresses the way he best way he knows how: reviewing what went well, what went poorly, what he could have done better, and what he could have done better if he had the ability to do better.

GOOD:

Speeches recited very well
Pretzel!!!  Such a good shape
No huge gaffes
Mentioned accident, in a good light.

BAD:
"Um", stutter.  Blushes re: partner.  How to practice NOT blushing???
Emphasized danger too much?  Hmm.  Discuss w/Bill
Should you be on phone during interview???  Discuss w/Bill/Media Specialist.
Froze up during tooth.  Practice more.

RESEARCH/ACTION ITEM:
Sinkhole: discuss boundaries.  ACTUAL discussion this time.
Get MOLLE rig photos to Plum Kapernik(sp?) look up correct spelling later.  Do NOT just wing it.
More diction training.  During next healing shift, maybe?  Costs a slot of healing to gain protection for therapist.  Injured speech therapist?  lol.  maybe.